Category Archives: Sewing

Out with the Old

Posted on July 5, 2011 | 23 Comments

In 2003 when I first stepped tentatively back into the knitting I remembered doing in childhood, one of the first things I made was a hot water bottle cover. A basket weave pattern, some eyelets knit oh so cleverly (I felt) into the ribbing and suddenly I had a finished item. I made it from some, I think, Cleckheaton I bought at Lincraft, on straight plastic needles. It looks, all these years later, like the well used item I knew it would be – it’s served me well.

Eight years is not bad service but its time has come. It’s thin, worn and not all that attractive. I have meant to knit a new one for ages but when I stumbled across a quilted version, I jumped at the chance to choose some nice fabric from my burgeoning stash and give this a go. It was, to say the least, painful, but I got there.

The original design used stippling (for the uninitiated – free-form lines instead of straight lines) and binding around the edge, both of which are sadly beyond my skills at this point in my sewing life (I can do binding – but curved? No way. I failed.)

So I stuck with straight lines (the inside is lined with some leftover sheeting) and sewed it together inside out, leaving the raw edges inside the cover, instead of on the outside, because I just couldn’t get the binding I so proudly made to go around the curved corners of the neck. Before I try curved binding again, I’ll do something with less sharp turns!

On the back, you can see what the binding would have looked like where I put it across the opening.

I can’t help thinking the top of the cover should have rested over the bottom of the cover but you know what? I unpicked this three times trying to get it right. It’s a hot water bottle cover, not a garment. It will do just fine now. I almost tossed it when I couldn’t get it right but I loved this matryoshka doll fabric so much I didn’t want to waste it. Where there’s a will, right?

I’m looking forward to trying it out tonight – such a blustery cold winter’s day here. Anything to keep toasty warm.

The designer has a couple of versions she’s made of this if you’re keen to have a go. I think at some point I’ll definitely try another one.

Bells

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Posted in Home, Knitting, Quilting, Sewing

Monday joy

Posted on May 30, 2011 | 20 Comments

I went back to work today. Five weeks’ worth of emails greeted me on arrival – they were dealt with fairly promptly with some swift deleting. So little electronic communication is relevant or important weeks after the fact.

When I got out on the wrong floor, I wondered what on earth was going on. How could I get out on the wrong floor after just five weeks? My sister said that was a sign that I’d had a truly restful break and I think she’s right. In a way it flew by, but in a way I see that I crammed a lot in, trying to make the most of the time without necessarily panicking about it slipping like sand through my fingers.

I tried hard to get that balance right. So we’ll take going to the wrong floor as a very good sign.

And if I needed any evidence that my creative output over the break was good, this photo helps cement that notion (yes, clunky segue – I know. Indulge me!)

This is Alice the morning after giving her the stuffed patchwork dinosaur of the last post. Her mum wrote to say that the dinosaur was the first thing she wanted on waking, and that he had to help her eat breakfast.

Let’s call that a win, yes? I kind of knew that yesterday when I arrived at her house, presented the dinosaur to her and within minutes he was ‘roaring’ and eating gravel and ‘dinosaur’ became one of her many new words of the day. We took her briefly to an afternoon party with some friends and the dinosaur was cordially introduced to anyone who would pause to meet him.

And in the evening, over wine and dinner, we (her parents and us) named him Doug.

Doug? I know. I don’t know why either but we laughed a lot and somehow in that mass of stupid, non-sensical conversation, Doug was born.

Knowing that Doug had become an instant pal this morning helped with that re-entry into the working world. Just a little.

Bells

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Posted in Family, Sewing

Dinosaurs and Cushions

Posted on May 26, 2011 | 24 Comments

As the end of my Long Service Leave looms, I’m trying to fit in as much sewing as possible. Knitting is for the evenings (or watching Madmen during the day!) but most days this week I’m sewing as much as possible. I’m taking a deep immersion approach, wanting to learn lots and get ahead. In essence, I’m setting myself ‘assignments’ every day of something different to make.

A few months ago, Ailsa of Knitabulous sent me a link to an online patchwork course and I signed up right away. The e-course is Red Velvet – Modern Patchwork and even though I signed up right away, I sat on it for a while. I’m not sure why. I think perhaps I thought the first project looked a bit, well not like what I wanted to do. That was such a silly thing to think because I made the first project on Tuesday and I fell in love.

Please meet two very cute patchwork dinosaurs.

After I made the first one (red) and decided he would be for Miss Alice, I sent a photo to my sister Adele who showed it to Mr Willem and of course I received a request back right away for a dinosaur for him – in orange, no less. Thankfully, I have bit of orange in the stash thanks to a big bag of fabric given to me by Dianne.

Here they are from the back.

These were great fun and in the end so simple and effective. Sew together a bunch of coordinating strips, iron, cut out the template, sew, stuff. From here I’ll be making up my own templates and seeing what I can come up with (chickens? You bet!). Oh and they have names, too. I put the call out on Twitter after making the first one for suggestions for names and the very clever Alison from MachenMachen came back with Patchosaurus Rex. Perfect! Let’s hear Alice try and say that! The second one has been dubbed by his new owner, Willem, as Willemosaurus. Naturally.

From cute, to practical. I’ve been wanting to give our lounge cushions a makeover and so found a designer on etsy who has a set of three cushions available. Her website is Lilly*Blossom.

The first was a Union Jack inspired piece.

On a background of floral fabric, the pattern gets you to ‘build’ the cross shape with plain and striping fabric, in several layers until it’s done and then you join it to a plain back that has an envelope opening. Voila!

The second was simpler but I think is my favourite. A Contrast Tied Cushion Cover which I made using a scrap of upholstery fabric I bought from a local curtain supplier (those places are great for offcuts! I got loads last week).

This one is lined with a piece of an old bed sheet and I think it works really well. I’m looking forward to making more of these.

And just to show that my knitting is in no way suffering while I throw myself into so much sewing, I finished a glove yesterday. My first ever glove. This was great fun. Even the fingers. More details when the second one is done.

So there you go – lots of fun sewing. Today, my first task is to tidy up the dining table. It’s covered in fabric from the last three days and I can’t start anything new until I can find my rotary cutter and pins!

Bells

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Posted in Finished Objects 2011, Sewing

A Black and White Quilt

Posted on May 24, 2011 | 29 Comments

When I started sewing last year, I said I wasn’t going to be a quilter. I’m not even sure why I said that. It was nothing against quilts or quilters at all – I just didn’t think it looked like something I wanted to do. Too much detailed work, maybe? Not being sure I had the ability to do that sort of precise sewing? I suppose when you start learning a new skill, you don’t yet know what you will or won’t be able to manage and so it’s easy to dismiss things that look too hard. Like knitting lace. I used to think that’d always be outside my range. But I learned with knitting to never say never.

So I made a little quilted table top last year and thought that was a fine way to pass the time. It’s pretty dodgy in places and in fact won’t really last very long because my poor seaming is coming apart, but that’s what first steps are all about. I learned all the ways that stuff can go wrong and applied that new knowledge to my first proper quilt, which I finished on Sunday. Made with a pack of Moda charm squares in the Half Moon series, it’s draped here over our small sofa bed lounge.

I made the top of the quilt several months ago, spending a couple of Sundays arranging the squares into blocks. That was fun. We put them out on the lounge room floor and over the course of a day or two, would stare at them, rearranging, trying to get them into some sort of pleasing configuration. Sean turned out to be quite good at that – he’s got a good eye.

So I made four blocks, using some white cotton from the stash to build them and then eventually put them together with the black border, or sashing. There it sat for several weeks while I built up the courage to do the big job of machine quilting.

I’m not sure how normal it is to make the lines of the quilting so visible – see those black lines running diagonally? I think most people choose a colour that blends in more but I talked it over with my mum and we thought, what the hell, just go with the black, see how it works. I think technically it’s supposed to blend, and technically when you’re new and not particularly skilled yet, hiding your quilt lines is more the norm. I did worry that not being terribly precise yet, going with such stark sewing might really show up the wonkiness but it’s ok.

As I said to my mum, it’s a lap rug. It’s not a show piece. And I’m just learning so who cares – just go with whatever. One of the benefits of being new is that I’ve got a certain amount of naivety about it all. I don’t really know the RULES yet and anyway, who wants to be bound by rules? I don’t.

There are certain things I wanted to get right though and I overcame my perceived dislike of handsewing and did the final stage of the binding by hand. Love the polka dots! Over two nights, I crippled my hands doing all that stitching on the reverse side and decided it’s just as nice a way to spend an evening as knitting on the couch is. It’s all about the tiny stitches in the end and I should just get over myself and embrace the hand sewing thing. So I did and it was lovely.

I think it’s about as big as I want to go in terms of fully quilting something. I found it pretty gruelling working with a 109cmx109cm (43″x43″ ) piece of fabric in the last stages. I think if I wanted to make something bigger, I’d do all the piecing myself and send it out for professional quilting but that’s some way off yet.

Here’s the back, which I had to put a strip of black into because of the width of the piece.

I like the idea of putting a point of interest in the back and plan to explore options for this with my next quilt.

So does one quilt make you a quilter? Maybe. I don’t know. I seem to have the bug if my net surfing is any indication, as well as the books I’m buying and the way I’m looking at my stash. I started out just wanting to learn the techniques because I think it’ll be useful and it’s certainly teaching me a lot about precision.

Oh, and it’s fun. Truly fun. The two days I spent last week completely lost in bringing this all together were just wonderful. I felt content and satisfied which is a very nice headspace to find myself in.

Bells

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Posted in Finished Objects 2011, Quilting, Sewing

In Threes Cardigan: A Cardigan for Alice

Posted on May 21, 2011 | 27 Comments

After I finished the jacket I made for my nephew Willem, I had plenty of the Cascade 220 left over and I knew I wanted to make something for Alice out of what was left. This way they could be matching cousins.

The choice of what to make was simple when I found this little pattern on Ravelry a few weeks ago – it’s called In Thees: A Baby Cardigan and it came together in about five days. Too, too simple.

When I first started it, I thought ‘oh this is just a simple little piece. It won’t be anything special, just a run around garment’ but something happened once it came off the needles. It seemed so much lovelier than I imagined. Something about the stripes, and the way it sat. I laid it out on my lap and thought, this is a good piece of clothing. This is something that will really be an Alice item. I can’t explain. It’s just Alice. Her parents’ reaction to it backed up how I felt and when I sent a picture to her Aunty Adele the response was the same. This was a lovely little toddler cardigan and so very Alice.

She modelled it for me today while simultaneously wandering around the house and yard and looking sad. Alice has been a little under the weather this week and very clingy and teary. She’s all about snuggles and upside down facial expressions. You can see it in this photo. A little bit of a sad face.

There really isn’t that much to say about this cardigan except that it’s stunningly simple and effective. One to two skeins of worsted weight wool, 5mm needles, a few days’ worth of knitting and you’re done. I love the little wooden love heart buttons. They work so well.

I made the little dress under the cardigan too. It’s the same little dress pattern I’ve been using since last year – the Lizzy Pinny – just upsized because she’s grown. It’s some nice blue corduroy, lined with pale blue flannel for extra warmth. Paired with the cardigan it worked like a charm, as if I’d made them to go together, which I didn’t. I made them in the same week but didn’t know they’d work so well until we dressed her this morning.

Sometimes, it all just comes together perfectly. I’m already lining up another one!

Bells

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Posted in Family, Finished Objects 2011, Knitting, Sewing, Uncategorized

A Stylish Apron

Posted on May 13, 2011 | 19 Comments

The third week of my leave has seen me living with the plague. Ok, maybe not the plague (an absence of bubonic pustules is telling) but a nasty chest infection that’s kept me out of action. It came on the night we returned from Braidwood and I’ve kept warm and sheltered since, always making sure to heed my mother’s warnings when outside the house to wear a scarf and keep my chest warm.

Except for today when I modelled an apron I made recently. The sun came out briefly after lunch and I headed outside to get some Vitamin D and show off my latest sewing project. I went looking on Etsy a while ago for some fun patterns for aprons, figuring it’s a great way to try my hand at matching fabrics and making something useful. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

The design is by Everyday Chic and I bought it from their shop on etsy. They’ve got several great apron patterns.

It ties up both at the neck and the waist and sits very comfortably.

I’m used to aprons made from heavier fabric though – this one is just made from quilting cotton. I’m unsure yet how I feel about a lightweight apron – perhaps it’s just a matter of adjusting since I’m so used to stiffer fabric in commercially made versions. I do wear aprons a lot (I’m forever wiping my hands on my clothes in the kitchen if I don’t!) so I’m going to make more of them for sure.

The chickens were wandering around while we took these photos and I grabbed Shirley for a cuddle. I love cuddling the girls (or the Sister Hens as we call them sometimes. If you watch Big Love you’ll get that!). They’ve become very willing recipients of a bit of handling, but do let us know when they’re not interested (mostly by running away!).

I love this picture. How much more rustic can you get than standing in your back yard on an autumn day, wearing a home-made apron and cuddling a chicken? I should add, lest this all sounds just too picture-perfect, that seconds after Sean took this photo, Shirley crapped on my apron and flapped out of my grasp. Nice one, Shirley. There’s a first time for everything.

Bells

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Posted in Chickens, Home, Sewing

An Ipad Cover

Posted on April 5, 2011 | 23 Comments

A few weeks ago, we bit the bullet and bought an ipad. A certain member of our household had longed for one for some time and so it was inevitable we’d get one eventually. In due course we’ll have one each but for now, we share. When it came time to choose fabric for a cover, I had to choose something that Sean wouldn’t be ashamed to pull out of his bag in public. Not that I would have been inclined to choose anything particularly feminine for myself, but it was something to keep in mind.

I chose a tutorial I found online. It was really well written and easy to follow. Any mistakes I made (and I did make a few) were my fault and not that of the pattern.

I’ve had a nice piece of Amy Butler fabric in “Lotus Revisited Wallflower” for a while that seemed perfect. To line it I used an old sheet in a matching pale blue. A note on using old sheets: I didn’t realise that because the fabric was quite worn and thin, cutting it out wasn’t easy. It seemed to warp and twist every time I tried gently to run the pencil along the ruler. That took several goes. I’d think twice before using an old thin sheet again, even though I love the idea of repurposing fabric.

Quilting it was quite fun. Nice straight lines.

Then came the assembly. The pattern said to use interfacing between the wadding and the fabric but I didn’t. I couldn’t see that it was going to add much to the stability of it given there’s so much padding. Can anyone give me a good reason I should have used it?

It came together really nicely. It’s snug. The pattern is supposed to go around not just an ipad, but a case as well.

All I can say is thank goodness for seam rippers. The first time I turned it the right way out after joining the lining and exterior fabric, the flap was trapped on the inside, between the layers. I lost a good hour ripping it all apart!

I’m thinking I would like to join a strap to it now, for easier carrying. Or maybe I won’t. Not sure. All I know is it’s a nice, squishy and cosy cover that works really well! Next time I make one (and I will) I’d place the velcro a little better but it’s fine for now.

Speaking of the iPad, there’s someone else who’s taken to it like a dream. I mean, I love it especially because of how it’s so great for uploading PDF patterns, making them so clear and useable (so much better than carrying paper everywhere!) but we’ve found a lot of great toddler apps that have made the iPad very popular with Miss Alice.

She slept over on the weekend and we spent a happy morning in our PJs playing with it on Sunday. We read Dr Seuss books, do puzzles and play all sorts of number and alphabet games. She’s incredibly adept at it. She’s a great reader generally and swaps between real books and books on the iPad with ease. It’s so much fun to play with it together!

Bells

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Posted in Family, Sewing

Wrap Up – and some pretties

Posted on March 24, 2011 | 30 Comments

Well. That whole Aussie Bloggers Conference thing was fun. Some fabulous discussion I totally didn’t expect. I got a lot of comments directly via email too and really loved how it all played out. I do hope the organisers (who I know read it) found it useful too and that Aus Blog Con 2012 is the success they hope it to be. If nothing else, I know I was really glad to learn that I wasn’t alone in some of my feelings on the weekend. Some of the comments made me wish I’d gotten out of my shell a bit and tried to engage more. I might have found more like-minded souls if I had.

So a huge thanks to everyone who offered their thoughts and reflections. It really meant a lot to me.

+ + +

Shall we enjoy something pretty now? Do you see stuff made by other people sometimes and wish to God you had half their vision? I like the things I make and am often very happy with them, but I never pretend to have a great eye for how things go together. It’s why when I sew I like to use pre-selected packs of squares for quilts. Someone with a greater design aesthetic has done that hard work for me.

When I won a contest on the blog of Sydney knitter 1FunkyKnitWit, I sort of forgot. I knew I’d won a skein of her handspun but a few weeks passed and I couldn’t have told you more than that if you’d held a gun to my head.

Then the package arrived and I was awe struck. I know from reading her blog that Margarita is big on design and style. Most of it wafts over me in a vague blur of wonder because I don’t really get a lot of that detail but I know it all looks nice. What was in the package was some stuff I really fell for. For starters, a pin cushion that is, well, very funky.

Who thinks of putting stuff together like that? I don’t. But I love it.

And what about this? Know what it is? It’s a needle case, for storing hand sewing needles. On the outside, it’s like this.

Open it, and it looks like this.

As you can tell, I’m a bit impressed. Anyone else think people who do this stuff should be selling it? I do. Great work, Margarita, it’s really lovely.

But wait! There’s more. With a bit of a story.

Last year when the Masters exhibition came to the National Gallery of Australia, Drk and I stood in line for three hours to see some wonderful art works. Both of us were VERY excited about seeing Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone. It was a really special day to share with a friend – to have such a sacred moment together.

As we admired the painting, we said to each other, someone ought to come up with a yarn dyed to look like a Van Gogh starry night. Turns out they did.

So when Margarita included in her package a skein of yarn called Starry Night, I believe I got a little misty eyed. Margarita didn’t dye it but she spun it beautifully into a delicate 2ply and I think it’s beautiful. Look.

I tried hard to capture the depth of it and I failed. It’s got hints of black in among the blue and yellow, just like a light flecked blue-black night. It’s beautiful and so even though I don’t always know what to do with handspun (a lot of that really busy, chunky handspun you see around often leaves me cold), I really love this yarn and it’ll be turned into something for me before too long. Ideas welcome! (edited to add: I have 301m/321yds).

So thanks heaps Margarita. I’m really pleased.

Bells

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Posted in Blogging, Sewing

Of a Tea Shawl and a Quilt

Posted on February 1, 2011 | 32 Comments

I suppose it’s unreasonable to expect that the things we make always go to plan. Even though I know things don’t always work out, I find myself surprised still that in the space of a month I can have great success with a beautiful doily churned out in a fortnight and then have a series of failures. I suppose that’s just the way of the world, isn’t it?

My Shetland Tea Shawl, as I mentioned in the last post, suffered a mishap and although it wasn’t a mishap brought on by lack of focus on the pattern, I still feel in some way responsible for it. I had made it through twenty-one rounds of the most complex chart in the pattern (which has thirty-six rounds) and was feeling like finally I’d found my groove. Through the knitting of it, I’d noticed a few times that the join between the cable and the point was wobbly. I had to push it back in a few times – it hadn’t come out – it was just a little loose.

Reader, take heed. If your cable is wobbly at the join, get rid of it lest what happened to me should happen to you. Late on Friday night the cable simply fell out of the join. Just like that. In an instant, a whole section on the left side of the work just dropped. Here’s what I was left with. Just a bare naked cable end and a piece of work that stands at approximately 570 stitches and was quite possibly ruined. I quietly wept.

I carefully placed the loose, floppy mass of unravelled stitches back on the needle and put it in a bag, knowing it was late and that I had a busy weekend ahead of me. Alice and lace work aren’t a winning combination. Over the last couple of days I’ve raged inwardly about it. All that work. Could I bear to rip it all back to the plain section and start that bloody chart all over again? Let me point out it’s a complex chart with lace on every row – no plain rows in between. And that I ripped out this section three weeks ago when I’d made too many mistakes. At that point, Drk and RoseRed and urged me to put in a lifeline.

I did not put in a life line. Pride goeth before a fall. We all know that. But in my defence I will say that I think lifelines are difficult in lace that has no plain rows. I’m happy for those of you more accomplished than I to correct me on that front.

Here’s the shawl as it looks today. You can see how very big it’s getting.

I’ve spent the last hour moving it onto another needle, a more secure one and examining the section where I’ve tried to pick up and reconstruct the fallen work. There’s been debate with friends in recent days about trying to be very clever and rebuilding it by pinning out the section and knitting painstakingly just in that section but on examination in daylight I’ve decided that it’s perhaps not as bad as I thought. I think two rows are affected by the incident but only in an area that runs across about twenty stitches. I think, as long as I’m happy to have a dodgy section that isn’t perfect, I can reconstruct it and keep going. I’m sure as hell not going to, at this stage, rip it out stitch by stitch. That way lies madness when it’s fiddly lace. But it’s not out of the question.

I had a vague notion that I’d like to enter this in the show next year. With a dodgy section, it won’t be possible but you know what? That’s ok. There are more lace shawls in my future this year. Maybe the next one will be a little closer to perfect.

That said, I should know within a round or two if the reconstruction effort is wasted. It might just be more awful than I realise. We shall see. In the meantime, that cable is now tossed on the floor and it’s next stop is the bin.

I did, for a few hours last night, consider tossing everything I’m knitting and starting over because it’s all just misery making. But I’m stronger than that. I can weather this knitting storm. I think as many have pointed out, the searing heat makes us all grumpy and unable to cope as well as we might.

In happier news, my squares from last week are now joined up and ringed (can you say ringed about a square?) with two borders. This, I can happily say, makes me feel like not everything is at a loss.

Isn’t it lovely? I feel so accomplished. My foot is included not as a joke or accident as my sister thought but for scale. I am going to send this off to the QLD Flood Relief project and Corrie or one of her helpers will make this top into a quilt for me. And pretty soon, I’m going to start another one because I want one to keep!

Right, back to my shawl and the air con.

Bells

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Posted in Knitting, Sewing

Better Blocks

Posted on January 25, 2011 | 25 Comments

If you recall the rather ugly attempt at quilting I wrote about last week, I hope you’ll agree with me that today’s effort is much, much better. After seeing how easily a few simple squares can go wrong, I went back to the drawing board and started from absolute basics. Simple squares, in a pre-selected range of fabrics (so that I didn’t have to think about that oh so confusing issue of matching) and the results, I think, speak for themselves.

This morning, after a bit of advice from my mum and some tutorials (thank you You Tube!) I set about making what’s commonly known as a Nine Patch block. The tutorials I read advised about placement of dark versus light fabrics and the all important bit about getting the seams to meet up neatly in the middle.

Over several hours I made four different 12″ blocks and I feel like taking a bit of care over it really helped restore my confidence. After the first one turned out so well, I kept going with the little bundle of pre-cut Moda fabric squares and made three more.

For the Quilts For Queensland project I was going to only make a block or two and send them off, but I’m thinking I might try my hand again at putting it all together into a small lap quilt, with a border to make it a bit larger. Or I might just send the blocks off safe in the knowledge that one of the quilters helping Corrie out with her project will quilt it in a much better way than I can. I’ll have think about it.

Either way, I think I’ll stick for a while to variations on this simple approach, perfecting the basic skills I’m building up before I launch into more complex pieces. I said I wasn’t going to become a quilter and I still really see no massive projects in my future, but there’s something so very soothing in putting squares and simple lines together in small pieces. I enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would so perhaps I’ll just go with the flow and see where it leads me. The need for precision is quite good for me I think. It makes me slow down and focus. That’s a good thing.

On the doily in the last post, a few questions answered. The finished size is 14″ and I used 2mm bamboo needles for it. My mum has decided she’d like to get it framed. I think that’s lovely.

Bells

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Posted in Sewing